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Importing Categories from one Q file to another.

StuartS

I am on a Mac using quicken Version 7.4.2 (Build 704.51578.100)

I have seen the content below in a couple places, but I don't get this option.

—"If you have a set of categories you like in one Quicken file, you can use QIF export/import to add them to another Quicken file: Select File > File Export > QIF File. In the resulting dialog, check only Category List. Export the QIF, switch to your other Quicken file, and import it."

When I select File > Export, I only get options for QMTF, which seems only to export transactions, or QXF which seems to export everything.

How do I just get the Categories?

And is there a similar process for Accounts?

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Accepted answers

jacobs

In Quicken Mac, if you want to start a new file with your old categories, you could duplicate your existing file and then delete all the accounts (which would delete all the transactions as well), leaving you an empty file with your existing categories, tags and securities. (You can additionally delete any categories, tags or securities if there aren't transactions in the file using them.) Make sure to delete any Hidden accounts as well.

If this is what you're wanting to do, I'd actually suggest a slight variation to simply duplicating your file. (Quicken will squawk at you if you try to switch back to a file you have duplicated; you can get around it, but this would be better to avoid that…

File > Export > Quicken Transfer File (QXF)
File > New
Select Start from Scratch
Select File > Import > Quicken Windows File (QDF, QXF)

Then proceed to delete all the accounts to create an empty file with your existing categories.

If you have an existing Quicken Mac file and you want to import categories from an older Quicken Mac file, then as Chris said above, there's no way to do that.

All comments

Chris_QPW

You are reading a Windows post, you can't do that kind of QIF export/import in Quicken Mac.

As far as I know (as a Windows user) the only way to move data from one data file to another in Quicken Mac is the QXF format, and it is all or none.

There is supposed to be an Idea to vote on for allowing selecting different things to export in the QXF export, but every link that I found had been archived. I'm sure a Quicken Mac SuperUser will come around and post it/correct anything I have wrong.

jacobs

File > Export > Quicken Transfer File (QXF)
File > New
Select Start from Scratch
Select File > Import > Quicken Windows File (QDF, QXF)

Then proceed to delete all the accounts to create an empty file with your existing categories.

If you have an existing Quicken Mac file and you want to import categories from an older Quicken Mac file, then as Chris said above, there's no way to do that.

StuartS

Thanks…not what i was hoping, but there it is….

jacobs

@RickO My reason for suggesting an export/import into a new file rather than duplicating the file was to avoid Quicken Cloud confusion if the user switches back and forth between the old file and new file. When you duplicate a file and update accounts, you get this warning message:

Screenshot 2024-01-09 at 12.22.57 PM.png

So I was trying to avoid that by suggesting to create a new file. There are other ways to achieve the same result. For instance, I think — but I'm not sure — if you duplicate the file, open the duplicate, immediately go to Settings > Connected Services, and click Reset for Quicken Cloud, that might result in two different Cloud datasets fro the two files. Or, if the old file is only going to be accessed for looking up old data, then opening the settings of each account and disconnecting from downloading might be safe. (Although if you ever click Update Accounts on purpose or by mistake, it would trigger the message above).

If I've got that wrong, please correct me. Although I did a quick test to generate the dialog above, this isn' something I regularly do!

Jon

You can also change the cloud name associated with the file on the Connected Services tab; if you give the two files unique cloud names that should prevent them from interfering with each other.

jacobs

You can also change the cloud name associated with the file on the Connected Services tab; if you give the two files unique cloud names that should prevent them from interfering with each other.

Hmm, I'm not sure about that. I have a number of Cloud Accounts with the same Cloud Account Name, according to the Connected Services box. I have always assumed there is some long ID number associating the desktop file with its Cloud file counterpart.

I never tried editing the file name there, and didn't know it could be done! But I don't think changing the name changes the underlying ID number for the Cloud file.

Chris_QPW

I'm going to pipe in here because this is quite a problem on the Windows side and whereas they might not be done exactly the same way, they may be similar.

Back in the good old days before the Quicken Id (actually the Intuit Id) there wasn't any problems with copying a data file and using it as a template for another file. So, that is how the old "Copy" in Quicken Windows worked, a simple file copy.

Then the connection to more and more information in the Quicken Cloud dataset happened, and the need to keep that data in sync.

In Quicken Windows there is two things that tie a Desktop data file to the Quicken Cloud dataset (and neither is the name). There is the Quicken Id itself, and there is a unique Id that gets generated when a data file is created.

Clearly using these two as the "username" of the Quicken Cloud dataset means that if someone uses their data file as a template for another file that isn't going to be identical, it can cause all kinds of problems. And believe me, it already has on the Windows side.

A couple of years ago they changed the Copy so that it creates the new data file with a new unique Id, and to be sure there is no connection to the old data file they also deactivate all the online services. Needless to say, for people that were used to just making copies and the online services not changing and such, this wasn't met with glee.

On top of that, one has to understand something, and that is a backup file has the same unique Id!

It was also the recommended practice of making a backup on one machine and then restoring it on another as a way to share the data file. Well, about the same time they made the change to the copy function (or actually a bit before that) they ran into the problem of "syncing" when they have an old copy of the data file that is now trying to sync with a current copy of the Quicken Cloud dataset. Their "solution" was to change restore (not backup) so that when you do a restore it "throws away" the Quicken Cloud dataset and recreates it. "throws away" isn't perfectly accurate. It seems they have some requirement to keep it unless the user tells them to remove it. So, there are these "hidden" dead Quicken Cloud datasets, and there is a limit to them. So, people hit an error for this and have to call Quicken support do have the old ones deleted. But if they keep doing backups and restores they will hit this again.

So, now the policy is to do a file copy to the other machine if this is a sharing of the same data file.

Clearly Quicken Mac does this better than Quicken Windows, or there would be much more complaints, as there are in Quicken Windows threads.

But I do think one should keep in mind that there is a relationship between the Quicken Desktop data file and the Quicken Cloud dataset, and so you can't truly treat them as independent.